


The Beginner's Guide To Blake's 7 Slash

by Manna



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: F/F, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-15
Updated: 2010-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-06 08:05:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manna/pseuds/Manna





	The Beginner's Guide To Blake's 7 Slash

The books arrived on the Liberator by first class post—one for each of the crew, except Gan. He went to complain to the Author. She blamed the Federation Postal Service, and then quickly wrote him out.

Once the books had been distributed, the reading went on for almost half an hour until the arguing started. That stage lasted for some time before it reached the ultimatum phase.

"No!" Avon stopped pacing and leaned on the force wall console, glaring at the three men in the flight deck seating area. "I, for one, am having nothing to do with it. And that is _final_."

Tarrant, who hadn't really been listening to him anyway, turned a page. "I don't see what the problem is," he said absently.

"Look at it this way," Blake suggested. "We're all fictional characters. If people don't write about us, we'll cease to exist."

Avon was having none of it (in more ways than one). "Then let them write gen, if they must write something. I already exist, in fifty-one perfectly acceptable episodes—or fifty, not counting 'Animals'—during which I do not evince one iota of sexual interest in another man."

"'Duel'?" Vila suggested.

Avon folded his arms. "I absolutely and categorically refuse to discuss that. And in any case, it is _purely_ a question of interpretation."

"What about 'Pressure Point'?"

Blake coughed.

Avon ignored both of them. "The fact remains that _canonically_, I see no reason why I should be expected to do any of this." He held the book at arm's length, his expression suggesting the presence of a very unpleasant smell in the near vicinity. "And most particularly, I fail to see why I should be required to do any of it with any of _you_."

"All right, all right," Blake said placatingly. "But you take my point?"

"Over my dead body," Avon snarled.

"Well, it wouldn't be _over_, so much as—" And then Vila thought better of it.

"It just won't work unless you cooperate, Avon," Blake continued. "You're very popular—"

"—in another reality."

Blake glared at Vila. "And it's hardly fair if the rest of us can't get a story just because you won't do it, now is it?"

"Appealing to my team spirit, Blake? Well, let me think about it...no."

Tarrant put his thumb in the book, so as not to lose his place, and looked up. "Come on, Avon, it can't be that bad. It's a choice between a bit of non-regulation nookie and literary oblivion. Seems simple enough to me."

"Well, if anyone ought to be capable of recognising simplicity...but this isn't all sun, sea and 'Sand'. Why don't you try looking up BUARA in the glossary?" Avon suggested bitterly. "Or just read Appendix A - Avon Suffers Beautifully. Allegedly."

"And have you _seen_ page ninety-seven?" Vila added.

Blake started rifling through his copy, which was already beginning to look a little dog-eared. "Thirty-four...interesting...forty-one..."

"How terribly reassuring to discover that the revolution is in the hands of a man who cannot count without moving his lips."

Blake ignored him. "Sixty-nine...well, I never...seventy-seven...eighty-four...ninety—Good God!"

He tilted his head to one side, then settled for the simpler expedient of turning the book. Then he turned it back the other way. "It that even _possible_?" he asked uneasily.

Avon nodded. "There are detailed instructions on the following page which seem technically feasible."

The other three looked at him, and he turned slightly pink.

"Simply because I RTFM, that does _not_ mean I have any interest whatsoever in putting the contents to practical use."

"'The Web'," Vila commented, to no one in particular.

"Why don't you just—"

"Or 'Rescue'. What do you think, Tarrant? Tarrant?"

"Hm?" said Tarrant, his attention riveted to page ninety-seven.

Blake narrowed his eyes. "'Rescue'?"

"Question of interpretation again," Avon said hastily. "And he had a gun. I was playing for time. He wasn't interested anyway. Ask Soolin. Or, er, on second thoughts—" He shut up abruptly.

Vila looked around the flight deck. "Where _are_ the girls, anyway?"

"I don't know." Blake looked away from Avon. "I heard Cally say something to Jenna about Appendix F-F, and they left with Dayna and Soolin."

There was a brief silence as pages turned. Then a rather longer silence, eventually broken by Vila.

"Now _that_ is something worth writing about. Hey...do you think we could persuade Zen to put them on the main screen?"

"Canonically—" Blake glanced briefly at Avon, "—we don't have internal sensors that can do that."

"But this isn't canon, is it? Avon, could you thingumajig it?"

Avon frowned. "I have never tried it before. However, that doesn't mean it might not be _possible_." And he glanced briefly at Blake. "It may perhaps be easier to accomplish without an audience."

Attention returned to Appendix F-F as Avon opened a panel below Zen's dome. After a few minutes' delicate work he looked up.

"Zen, activate the internal visual scanners."

+Scanners are not available+

The other three were too occupied with their reading material to notice Avon reach into the panel and deliver a couple of hefty thumps to Zen's more sensitive circuitry. Reality shifted almost imperceptibly, and a discreet security camera, which had always been there, appeared in one corner of the flight deck.

+Ouch, you sod+

"Zen, activate the internal visual scanners."

+Affirmative+

Avon smiled and closed the panel. "Well, now, that is _one_ experiment successfully concluded."

Vila moved hastily to claim the prime spot in front of the main screen. "Zen—" he began, before Tarrant interrupted.

"I'm not so sure we should be doing this."

"—show us Cally's room," Vila finished.

+Affirmative+

They contemplated the disappointingly empty cabin.

"Vila, this really isn't very—"

"Zen, show us Jenna's cabin."

+Affirmative+

"Very polite. Respectful. Good mannered."

"No, not there. Zen, Dayna's cabin."

+Affirmative+

"And Soolin's a _damn_ good shot."

"Where can they be?" Vila turned pages, reading with concentration. "Hang on a minute, now what's this? F-F.4.56. Zen, let's have the _shower_ in Cally's room."

+Affirmative+

"In fact, they can all handle themselves pretty...crikey."

Vila's eyes grew very, very round. "What do you think of _that_, Avon? Avon?"

No response. Reluctantly, he looked away from the screen. No Avon. Come to think of it, no Blake either. "Where are they?"

"Uh?"

"Where—" Vila snapped his fingers in front of Tarrant's rapidly glazing eyes until he managed to get his attention. "Where did Blake and Avon go?"

"What? Honestly, Vila. Can't you guess?"

"You don't mean...? I don't believe it. After all the _fuss_ Avon was making? The way he was carrying on about it—"

Tarrant sighed. "Vila."

"Oh. Right. Of course. Avon."

Tarrant turned back to the main screen, which seemed to have steamed up. "Well, that just leaves the two of us."

"We could see if the girls need any company."

"They didn't look like they needed company. And I'm not sure I'd like to have to explain how we knew where they were. I couldn't see any guns in there, but you can never tell with Dayna. I swear, I don't know where she puts them."

Vila coughed. "Er—good point. In that case...it's not usually my sort of thing but—just out of curiosity—what does the book have to say?"

Tarrant turned to the Summary. "We're listed under 'less popular pairings'. But on the plus side we get a very low angst rating. One hankie."

Vila brightened. "Could be worse."

Tarrant favoured him with a particularly toothy grin. "Vila, that's _exactly_ what I've been saying all along."

~~~

In a cabin elsewhere on the Liberator, pages rustled. A leather jacket had been draped carefully over the surveillance camera, leaving only the sound feed.

"Blake?"

"Yes?"

"What do you think about page eighty-six?"

"Hmm...I think I'd slip a disc. Why don't we start on page one and work our way up to the more challenging stuff later?"

"It's very thick."

"Yes. It is, isn't it?"

There was a significant pause. "The _book_, Blake."

"Oh."

"Never mind. Page one it is, then. Ahem. 'Frottage makes for an easy introduction to slash sex for the nervous author'."

"What about the nervous charact—ah!"


End file.
